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NEWS FROM ACROSS NATION
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PARENTS ACCUSED OF GIVING KIDS DRUGS AS ‘BARGAINING TOOL’ : ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — A couple gave their teenage daughters cocaine and marijuana if they went to school and did household chores, authorities said.

Chad and Joey Mudd, of Largo, a suburb in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area, gave their daughters, ages 13 and 14, drugs as a “bargaining tool” for school attendance and doing chores, Pinellas County Sheriff’s detectives said. They were arrested Monday.

According to an affidavit, the mother said she smoked pot with her daughters five times and the father snorted cocaine with the teens and one of his daughter’s boyfriends in his truck.

Chad Mudd, the 36-year-old father who works at an area beach bar, was charged with six counts of child abuse and one count of possession of cocaine. Joey Mudd, the girls’ 34-year-old mom, was charged with two counts of child abuse. Arrest records say she works at a pediatrician’s office.

 

TWINS HAVE DIFFERENT FATHERS, JUDGE FINDS IN PATERNITY CASE: PATERSON, N.J. (AP) — A paternity case involving a set of twins had a surprise ending worthy of a daytime TV talk show: The girls have different dads.

A judge ruled Monday in a paternity case that the man from whom the twins’ mother sought child support has to pay for only one of the children. A DNA test showed that he was almost certainly the father of one twin but wasn’t the father of the other.

It’s rare for a woman to give birth to twins with different fathers. Passaic County Superior Court Judge Sohail Mohammad wrote in his opinion that he found two other court cases nationally on such matters.

It can happen when the woman has sexual intercourse with two men in the same menstrual cycle and two of her eggs are fertilized separately by each man.

The case came to light when a Passaic County woman sought child support payments from a man she thought was the father of her daughters, who were born in January 2013. The DNA test was conducted.

In court testimony, the mother said she had sex with both men in a span of about a week.

The judge ruled that the man owes $28 per week.

 

COPS: MAN USED DAUGHTER, 9, TO SCAM GIRL SCOUT COOKIE BUYERS: APOLLO, Pa. (AP) — A man used his 9-year-old daughter as a ploy to collect money for Girl Scout cookies he never ordered or delivered, police said.

Thirty-three-year-old Cody Patrick Wylie was arraigned Tuesday on charges of theft and receiving stolen property. He lives in Westmoreland County, northeast of Pittsburgh.

He and his daughter took door-to-door cookie orders from as many as 100 people, police said, and eight people filed a criminal complaint.

Wylie used the girl to make the scam appear legitimate, police said, and collected $124 in preorders. Police said he demanded cash upfront for the cookies, which isn’t customary. Police also said he was purporting to sell cookies long after Girl Scouts usually take orders.

 

POLICE: TEACHER LOWERED AUTISTIC BOY HEAD-FIRST INTO TRASH 

MARIETTA, Ga. (AP) — A Georgia special education teacher is accused of cruelty to children after police say she held an autistic boy upside-down by his legs and lowered him head-first into a trash can.

An arrest warrant says Mary Katherine Pursley told the second-grader that if he had “trashy behavior” like the Sesame Street character Oscar the Grouch, he would go “to the trash can.”

Cobb County School District police state in the warrant that another employee witnessed Pursley place the boy into the trash can at Mount Bethel Elementary School outside Atlanta on April 30.

 

POLICE INVESTIGATE HOW COCAINE PACK ENDED UP IN GRANOLA BAR: SAN ANTONIO (AP) — San Antonio police are investigating how a packet of cocaine ended up inside a wrapped Nature Valley granola bar.

Cynthia Rodriguez of San Antonio says she was eating the bar when a small, green bag emblazoned with dollar signs fell out. Rodriguez contacted manufacturer General Mills Inc., thinking she had won a prize. Company officials told her to call the police.

Rodriguez contacted police March 18 and investigators determined the bag contained cocaine.

Sgt. Javier Salazar says authorities are trying to determine how the package got inside the granola bar wrapper.